


A Familiar Ache

by thesunsaid



Category: Fleabag (TV)
Genre: Breaking the Fourth Wall, F/M, Post-Canon, Religion, Spoilers for Episode: s02e06 Episode 6
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-21
Updated: 2019-12-21
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:22:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21882955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesunsaid/pseuds/thesunsaid
Summary: The Priest sees Fleabag before she sees him."Could he count the sacraments he'd given, the homilies he'd delivered, the prayers he'd made, the confessions he'd heard and find them more worthy than what he could've had? And wasn't that just the test he'd imagined for himself all those months ago? Wasn’t that what he trusted to be true -- not trusted, wasn't that what he had faith in? That the work he had to do somehow meant that being with her wasn't the best choice, that it wasn'tright."
Relationships: Fleabag/Priest (Fleabag)
Comments: 11
Kudos: 63
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	A Familiar Ache

**Author's Note:**

  * For [perfectlystill](https://archiveofourown.org/users/perfectlystill/gifts).



> I have a deep love for the Priest's wedding speech and a I think a lot of that comes through in this. I hope you enjoy it. Merry Yule and Happy Holidays. <3

_ "Love isn't something that weak people do." _

His knees had gone from all the prayers. Days. Nights. Long afternoons alone in the confessional. He'd thought the pain was well-deserved. It made sense to him in a way that he knew wasn't really rational. But it was love and that wasn't really rational either.

He'd given a whole speech about it. Stood up in front of her family and their friends and people from church and told them how awful it all was. So if anyone should’ve known what it felt like, it would be him. Only, he hadn't really. It had been awful before. It had been hard and frustrating and complex, but it hadn't quite hurt the same. It didn't even help that he could line out all the reasons he knew he'd made the best decision. The  _ right _ decision.

Eventually, he knew, London couldn't be quite large enough to never see her again. But he'd prayed that it would take a good thirty years, long enough for the pain to have passed for good. For it not to hurt anymore.

Usually he enjoyed when God made such an obvious point of proving him right.

It felt a little different this time.

It felt a little like God had reached in and grabbed his heart right out of his fucking chest.

Like he was waiting for a bus that wasn't coming.

Like she was sitting next to him and not across the street, happy and smiling and unaware.

He stood, staring until someone jostled his shoulder. He bumped into the wall behind him and still kept watching. She was talking, hands moving as she spoke, and smiling. She was smiling. Happy? She seemed happy. He spared a split second glance to take in the target of her attention, flicking back to her in the second he realized that she sat across from her sister, Claire. She was talking seemingly happily and willingly to her sister, outdoors at a café with empty plates and half-full glasses of wine between them.

As he watched he felt the specter that last feeling of her, the warmth of her next to him on that bus bench, fade. He missed it immediately, that closeness. It made his stomach feel cold and empty.

Everything he'd told himself in intervening months between then and now, had been to satisfy himself. It'd been to prove his own point. That he was strong. That he had faith.

That he had hope. And that it was God.

When he'd told her that it would pass, he hadn't known how much he'd have to live those words too. He had anticipated some of it, missing her, looking for her and eager to hear her laugh. He'd known he'd miss those things because he'd already learned to miss them in the minutes and hours and days they were apart. But he hadn't quite anticipated the magnitude.

It had produced quite a lot of good sermons as a result. Learning to deal with bitterness, regret, heartache. How to make tough decisions. How to listen, how to trust, how to have faith. How to let God lead.

Now he measured them against what he might have had. Could he count the sacraments he'd given, the homilies he'd delivered, the prayers he'd made, the confessions he'd heard and find them more worthy than what he could've had? And wasn't that just the test he'd imagined for himself all those months ago? Wasn’t that what he trusted to be true -- not trusted, wasn't that what he had faith in? That the work he had to do somehow meant that being with her wasn't the best choice, that it wasn't  _ right _ .

He scoffed. This pain said otherwise. It screamed inside his head, yawned in his chest like an abyss that spanned the whole of England to prove the opposite.

And isn't that just what the devil would say?

In that moment the wanting of the safety of his room in the church and the wanting of her, felt a little too much like the same thing. A little like he didn't know what was strength anymore, or if he wanted to be strong at all.

_ Fuck. _

"Fuck."

And wasn't that just the thing. Just like her to make him want something else. To break the rules, to break his heart even though he'd been the one to do it first.

And just like God to have her look up, to make her see. There he was. Just there, playing invisible and staring boldly at her.

He hadn't even thought about how he wanted her to be. How he would've wanted her to react, on a different day in a different place, in that distant thirty years when they might've seen each other again and had it play out like their relationship hadn't meant what it had. In that alternate future world, he might've been stronger and not wished the heartache on her too.

But he saw her and she saw him and he wanted to see that it'd been hard for her too. That she'd struggled because she really had loved him. If it was easy, then maybe it hadn't been love. Maybe it hadn't been  _ right _ , just like he'd thought. It felt horrible to wish such a thing on her, it was a shit thing to want: for someone you loved to feel pain. Especially the kind of pain he'd felt. Especially that pain.

The pain of loving someone not quite enough. Not quite the same.

She waved, smiling.

He waited. He waited for that moment he'd seen so many times. He waited for her to disappear. For that flickering thought that took her away from him, from her sister, from the rest of the world. Somewhere her mom was watching, or Boo, or just … somewhere. He'd always wanted to follow those moments and find that somewhere else. So he waited.

It didn't come.

Instead, she stood up and waved again. This time it was a gesture of invitation. And he started moving, crossing the street like his heart was connected to that beckoning wave. Like he couldn't help but follow.

And maybe it was inevitable. Maybe this had been the plan all along. Maybe it was supposed to hurt and he was supposed to fail. Maybe all that pain had been for something.

"Hi," she said.

"Hello, Father," Claire said from the seat where she'd stayed seated.

"Hello," he said. "Hi. Hello."

"Yes, hi." She smiled and nodded and tilted her head as if she was trying to divine something from him. Like why he'd been watching her from across the street, he supposed.

They were stuck in a loop. Everything he wanted to say tried to tumble out at the same time, and he chuckled instead.  _ Is it nice to see her? Do I say she looks good? Should I just say I need to be on my way? _

For all that it hurt to have her standing in front of him after all this time, he didn't know what to do with it. And putting it back on her seemed like too big a gap to cross. Like an imposition. And she'd beckoned him to say hello, not to dump half a year's worth of pain in her lap. He could smell her now though. More than that, what she smelled like, tasted like, what it felt like to hold her and watch her sleep.

He should've waved back and walked away. He should've.

He avoided her gaze, looking to the side and beyond her.

_ I should've. _

He felt a familiar ache in his knees, tempting him to kneel.

"Well," she said, not craning to meet his gaze but looking back down at Claire. As she sat back down, she said, "It's been nice to see you, Father. You look well."

They both knew it was a lie.

"Right. Thank you." He forced a smile down at her and tore his gaze away to Claire with a nod. "I was only passing by anyhow, so I'll see you." He hated himself for saying it, not for the lie of it but the truth.

Seeing her again was inevitable. Tomorrow, next week, or in that mythical future thirty years away.


End file.
